


Things that go bump in the wild

by Ephemera_pop (Alex_Draven)



Category: Popslash
Genre: DWNOGA, M/M, Secret Santa, a dark and stormy night, creepy motel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-25
Updated: 2006-12-25
Packaged: 2018-10-19 16:16:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10643514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alex_Draven/pseuds/Ephemera_pop
Summary: Written for Eddie, for Don We Now Our Gay Apparel, 2006





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Eddie, for Don We Now Our Gay Apparel, 2006

Chris was right. There weren't any paparazzi at Oregon's Tillamook airport. At least, not any that he could see looking around the tiny arrivals area.

There wasn't any Chris either, of course, and the thought crossed Nick's mind that maybe this was a great big prank, and if it was, no amount of being in front of the cameras twenty-four-seven was going to save Chris from an ass kicking. They only had a couple of weeks between his show finishing and Chris's beginning, and seeing as neither of them were quite ready for People yet, that meant a couple of weeks to catch up on two months apart, with hardly even a phone call to tide them over.

Nick's cell buzzed against his thigh.

"Hey, Chris, where are you?"

"Taking your wishes into consideration. I'm outside in a black 69 Dodge Charger. Come and get me."

Chris hung up.

Nick slowly closed his phone, and sighed before he picked up his bag. Chris had sent a driver to take him to meet a charter pilot, and told Nick to pack light, but not, of course, why. One day Nick was going to learn that lesson. Dropping his empty water bottle into a trash can, Nick started for the exit.

The air outside was crisp and damp and cold. Nick's fingers retreated automatically into the sleeves of his hoodie, and he looked around for a black car. There, down at the far end of the pick up point, a black-clad arm waved slowly from the driver's side window of a mud-spattered muscle car. Nick ducked his head against the wind and hurried down the sidewalk.

The window was down, and Nick bent over to see in. Chris was looking up at him over shades, his hair covered with a black and blue bandana, the long ends curling against his neck.

"Hey."

"Hey, yourself," Nick replied. This first meeting part never seemed to get not-awkward.

"I was right wasn't I?" Chris's fingers brushed against Nick's on the window edge, which took the sting out of the sharp words.

"About what?"

"No press?"

"No, no press. But I'm pretty sure camera phones have made it this far north, Chris."

"Well, then, stick your bag in the trunk and get in here so I can kiss you without attracting attention."

Chris's smile was broad and dazzling and oh so tempting, and then Chris waved his hand and Nick remembered that he had to move in order to dump his bags and get into the car. He took the key Chris was dangling with a 'thank you'.

Nick opened the trunk with one hand and slung his duffel bag round and in. The trunk was a mess of bags and boxes with a leather jacket and a four pack of Red Bull with one can missing balanced on the top. Definitely Chris's car.

The floor by the passenger seat was hardly any better, and Nick kicked aside empty chip bags and soda cans as he sat down. At least Chris had cleared the seat for him. The door fell closed behind him, not quite properly shut, but Nick didn't care, because Chris's hand was warm on Nick's cheek, and he'd lost the shades, and Nick couldn’t believe it had been nearly two months. The kiss was urgent and immediate and awkward around the gear stick and so, so good; Chris's mouth under his, and his tongue, and his hair over Nick's fingers, and Nick's scalp tingling where Chris pulled, and … yes. Thank heaven for tinted windows.

They were both smiling when Chris eventually pulled back.

"Yup - worth getting on that plane for," Nick confirmed.

"Aren't I always?" Chris smiled, and he squeezed Nick's knee.

"Well…"

The squeeze turned into a pinch and Nick yelped, and laughed. "Of course you are, Mister Great-Kirkpatrick, but normally I know where I'm going."

"Yeah, but that takes all the fun out of a road trip."

Chris held his hand out for the keys, and slid them into the ignition. The car rumbled into life - a deep, throaty engine noise that buzzed through Nick's bones.

"Hang on!" Nick scrambled to open and slam the car door before Chris could pull out. Chris waited for the door to be open before accelerating out of the space with a flurry of speed that gave Nick a startling second's view of rushing asphalt before he got the door shut.

"Bastard," he observed, and he knew without looking that Chris would be grinning.

True to form, Chris didn't say anything, just smiled wider, and as soon as they were out of the airport, he lent forward and pushed a disc into the cd player. The opening chords of Mr Sandman filled the car, and Chris settled back with one hand on Nick's thigh. Nick laced his fingers with Chris's and settled back to watch the miles go past. He trusted Chris to have a plan.

*****

"What do you mean, you don't have a plan."

"I told you - plans take all the fun out of a road trip."

Nick screwed around in his too-small passenger seat, trying to stretch his back and glare at Chris simultaneously. The sun was setting early, and the late-fall-early-winter landscape was open and bleak - all pale grey sky and empty fields.

"No, Chris, driving around in a car with crappy suspension forever takes all the …"

"Are you dissing my new car?"

"Yes!" Nick snapped. "You say vintage, I say rust bucket, okay?"

"No, not okay!"

The silence was hot between them for a few moments, and then Chris blew his breath out.

"You know what?"

"What?"

"I think we should find a motel, so I can lick you all over, and then fuck you 'till you apologize for that."

"You know what?" Nick replied.

"What?"

"I think we should do that, like, now."

*****

They'd driven around for another half an hour after Chris had said that, as the last of the daylight leached away, and rain started to fall. The first town they'd driven through didn't have a motel, that they could find, and they'd gotten lost on their way to the next town over, when the road signs started pointing in different directions.

Nick dug his nails into his thigh through his jeans, one at a time, and counted his breathing in and out to keep from saying anything, because last time he'd criticised Chris's driving Chris had chucked him out on the sidewalk, and Nick was pretty sure he didn't have a car service that he could call out here. Also, he didn't want to fight. He'd missed Chris too much for that.

In the end Chris had just taken the most likely looking road, which had brought them here. The motel was right out on the edge of town, and it didn't look too great, but they hadn't seen anything else, let alone anything better, so Chris rolled his eyes at Nick and turned into the lot.

Nick wasn't altogether sure about Chris's anonymity-through-not-caring plan, so he stayed in the car, listening to the engine tick and ping as it cooled, while Chris went in to the little office to secure them a room. He wasn't sure about the motel either. He was a lot more used to the kind of hotels where people came and valeted your car away, than the kind where you rolled right up to your door and carried in your own bags. The kind of place where towels weren't an added extra.

The parking lot was patchily lit, and mostly empty. Some of the cars Nick could see made Chris's rust bucket look like cutting edge technology and one of the bulbs was gone in the vending machine that was sitting on the porch, advertising -al -ke -ola in red, white, and black.

Chris insisted that the more run down a place was, the less likely they were to be recognised, because people wouldn't be expecting it, so they wouldn't believe it, even if they thought the two guys checking in to the double queen room looked oddly familiar, which, Chris tugged on his new long hair to prove the point, they wouldn't. The more Nick thought about it, the more Nick was coming to believe that Chris was just being Chris. It would be like him to think that Nick had missed out on something by touring around Europe with the Boys instead of going on family road trips around the mid west as a teenager.

Nick startled when Chris abruptly opened the door - he'd been so lost in his thoughts he hadn't heard Chris approach, so he was stuck there, one hand pressed to his chest like an old lady, when Chris thumped down into the driver's seat, and tossed a large key chain into Nick's lap.

"Don't tell me you're getting spooked."

Chris looked over his shoulder and put the car into reverse, so Nick took the moment to shake his head and compose himself.

"'Course not." He held the lacquered wood key chain up to the light. There was a hand painted 23. Right down the far end of the parking lot, then. Where the bulb was gone on the porch lights, leaving a pool of shadow between 22 and 24. "Although - you've got to admit this place is a bit, you know, Stephen King. Like that, oh, what's-his-face, did that one with the record store… John Cusack. That movie he was in, with the rain and the stripper called Paris."

"Identity? Trust you to remember the stripper. That wasn't Stephen King, dude. That was, um, shit, the guy who wrote Walk the Line?"

"I don't know. Anyway, not the point. I'm just saying - it's kind of creepy."

"Pussy. You know what it reminds me of?" Chris rolled the car to a stop between an empty spot and a battered white pick up, and lent down to pop the trunk. "Reminds me of Supernatural, so go get the bags, Sammy boy."

Nick lent over and shoved Chris in the shoulder.

"Tell me that's not why you got this car."

"It's not why I got this car," Chris replied with an altogether too solemn face. "Dean's car's a Chevy, anyway, an Impala."

Nick fought back a blush - AJ would have known that. Chris couldn't have seen that in the light of half a lot-light, but he grabbed Nick's hand and gave it a squeeze anyway.

Chris was already half way out of the car by the time he mumbled "this is a Charger, like the General Lee."

Nick got out of the car in a rush, leaning his forearms on the cold roof. "The General Lee?"

Chris glared at him across the metal, with his chin raised in a 'dare you to take the piss' stance. "Dukes of Hazzard? The TV show, not the movie."

"Oh." Nick tried to keep his smile on the inside. "Sorry, Chris, too old for me," he lied.

Chris's scowl was priceless, and Nick dodged the first smack that was aimed at his ass when they met at the back of the car, just to prove that he could, then let the second one strike home, leaving his ass cheek tingling under the denim.

"Promises, promises," Nick smiled, and shouldered his bag. "Lead on, McDuff."

*****

He hadn't realized quite how much he'd missed Chris physically until they had tumbled back onto one of the beds, all desperate mouths and grabby hands, half in, half out of their clothes, and he was toeing off one sneaker while trying to force his hand down the back of Chris's jeans to get to that fine, fine ass.

"I fucking missed you," Nick panted, before re-taking Chris's mouth again. Chris's fingers dug into Nick's hips in a way that meant 'me too', and he arched up against Nick. Clearly Chris's dick had missed him as well.

Chris's dick.

Nick closed his eyes, and then reared back, sliding off the edge of the bed onto his knees with Chris laid out in front of him. His fingers were clumsy on the zipper, and Chris's fingers gentle on Nick's jawbone didn't help any, but with some cooperative wriggling he had Chris's jeans and boxers down and, god, yes. He buried his face in the heated thatch, Chris's dick velvet-hot against his cheek as Nick inhaled. God he had missed this man.

His fingers steadied the base of Chris's hard cock, and he tried to tease, to lick and taste and tempt, but he couldn't force himself to slow down, couldn't resist the desire to fill his mouth, and Chris cried out when Nick sank down, wet mouth and wet cock coming together like perfection, like Chris's strangled voice and Chris's fingers in his hair and Chris's heel digging into his ass. Nick's lungs were burning before he drew back to gulp down a breath, drawing cool air over Chris's cock head, making him whimper again. Nick loved making Chris whimper and moan and lose all his words. Nick loved making Chris come.

Chris joked sometimes that Nick's tongue was a lethal weapon, and Nick used it now, slurping broad strokes up the thick shaft, sliding over and under the foreskin, exploring the lines of the glans, and then suddenly swallowing, hard and fast, before pulling back with a twist of the head that made Chris's voice echo in his chest.

Sweat prickling along his arm, where it rested on Chris's thigh, with Chris's belt digging into his forearm, and his fingers spread across Chris's hip bone, pressing hard against soft. His other hand was busy, working the base of Chris's cock, fingertips dipping at odd moments to press at the join of shaft and sack, where the pulse was fluttering. He wanted Chris to come, but not yet, not yet, not until he was rocking and desperate and Nick had had more of this, the taste filling his heart and his mouth, this connection re-established.

When he looked up, Chris's chest was working, panting like bellows, and his head had dropped back onto the comforter, his body twisted so that his right hand was pulling at Nick's hair, and his left was screwing the scratchy polyester into white-knuckled knots. Nick shifted, slowing the motion of his tongue on Chris's cock long enough to move his supporting arm, throwing it out full length so he could rest his head on his own upper arm, and palm at Chris's nipples at the same time. Chris's breath shuddered, and his hand was damp and hot and small over Nick's, pressing them both into his own chest, pressure instead of pinching, and Nick felt right, like a loop had closed sending the energy round and round like a fountain pump. He lowered his head now, a swift sure race for the finish, a rhythm that demanded Chris's orgasm, demanded and drew Chris's come into his mouth, his self.

He crawled up onto the bed, where Chris was loose-limbed and smiling, Chris's hands calmer, but no less insistent, as he pulled Nick close. Nick rested his head on Chris's shoulder, and curled his body, so that Chris's warm hand could wrap around Nick's heated cock, slow, easy strokes until his orgasm slid over him like sun-warmed sea water.

*****

They drowsed for a while; tangled together, listening to each other exist, until Chris started drumming his fingers on the quilt, his thigh twitching under Nick's leg as Chris kept time with one foot. Nick took his cue and blew a raspberry on Chris's shoulder, and rolled away when Chris shoved him. Without Chris wrapped around him, Nick realised that the room had gotten chilly as well as dark. A quick check confirmed that, really, he'd be better off getting the rest of the way out of his clothes and cleaned up before he did anything to warm up, though.

Chris switched the room lights on - tungsten-warm glare over fake wood and even faker leather - and rummaged around inside his bag, bare ass flashing under the layers of his t-shirts and over shirts.

"Here."

Nick acted on instinct, and batted the incoming Dopp kit away and on to the bed. A small, green towel followed.

"Thanks."

"Any time, princess." Chris's right sneaker joined the left one on the floor across the room, and Nick smiled to himself, and headed for the bathroom.

The shower wasn't going to be big enough for two, but the water that blurted into the bath when Nick span the old-fashioned taps was hot, and if the little room smelled of bleach, at least it was clean. He gave himself a lick-and-a-promise wash, and then scoured way the goose bumps with the towel before diving back into his jeans, trying to remember how many things he'd packed that he could layer.

"We could have met up somewhere south of here, you know?" Nick grumbled when Chris appeared, fully clothed again, in the door frame.

"Yup." Chris grinned, and batted at the long nylon cord of the bathroom fan. "But where's the fun in that? Too many people …."

"You wearing less clothes …" Nick followed Chris into the bedroom, and had to smile when Chris stopped and turned abruptly, so they ended up hugging again, and then Chris didn't reply because they were kissing some more, casual and easy and good, without the pressure of needing to get off. He really really had missed this.

"I missed this," he confessed. Chris's fingers tightened on Nick's butt.

"You want to go find some dinner?" Chris asked, without moving his hand.

"I could eat."

"Okay, then. Let's go a-hunting. See what Sheridan has to offer in the way of deep-fried cuisine."

"Sheridan?"

"I think we're in Sheridan - might be Willamina. Does it matter?"

"Not really." Chris wasn't even doing anything, and Nick realised he was grinning like an idiot. "C'mon."

*****

"Okay, Chris? This is starting to get weird. It's Friday night, where the hell is everyone?"

Amity - and it was Amity, because they'd driven off the edge of it and had to turn around in the street to head back down the main street - was deserted. Like - alien-invasion deserted, the-rapture-passed-here deserted. Empty cars were parked outside the closed store in town, and there was a whole little strip mall by the motel, with a closed liquor store, closed video rental, closed convenience store, and closed fried chicken place. It was weird.

"They must be over at the town barn dance or something." There was a cross roads, and Chris slowed to a crawl, checking carefully to both left and right, peering through the dark and the steadily falling rain, despite the fact they hadn't seen another car for hours. "There's got to be something up this way."

Nick settled back in his seat, arms folded. He wasn't convinced, and breakfast had been several hours and several states ago. "Unless they've all been eaten by polar bears or something," he muttered.

"Yeah. Cos this is Hawaii and we're in Lost now?" Chris teased.

Nick glared at Chris, just able to make out his profile in the dark, and then had to smile.

"So long as you don't get eaten by a bear."

"Deal. Do you see lights over there?"

Nick looked around, and yes, over to the left, there were lights visible through the rain.

"Yes!"

"Right." Chris braked hard, and threw the car into reverse. Nick slammed his hand into the dashboard.

"Chris!"

Acceleration pressed him back in his seat as Chris found the side road heading towards the lights. The throaty sound of the engine almost hid Chris's chuckle, and Nick promised himself revenge later.

*****

The lights turned out to be a diner built on to the side of an auto shop, and judging by the posters, the blacked-out building across from it was a cinema, which, a large sign told them, had two showings on a Saturday. The diner didn't have an opening hours sign, but the big picture windows glowed against the darkness, gold round the edges, red through the half-curtains across the bottom.

Chris pulled up in the parking spot outside the cinema, and with the engine switched off the rain was loud - it had been getting heavier, and now it sounded like peas on a drum.

They looked at each other in the dim reflected light.

"They'll have hot coffee," Chris pointed out. "And pie."

"I'm starving," Nick confessed.

"And burgers and home fries and slaw and …" Chris added in a rush.

"Shut up. You've got your wallet, right?"

"I've got cash. Just not an umbrella. On the count of three, right?"

"Right." Nick shifted, and got his fingers into the door handle, ready to open it and make a run for the diner.

"One, two, three, go!"

The first blast of rain was icy and slimy, and Nick screwed his eyes into slits, slamming the door and tucking his hands into his armpits in a single movement. He could hardly make out Chris on the far side of the car, but he could hear him cursing, and when Nick hesitated at the back of the car, Chris almost barrelled in to him.

"C'mon. Fucking weather," Chris called over the wind and the rain. Nick ducked his head and ran for the diner.

Nick was a pace and a half ahead of Chris by the time his foot hit the diner's front step, which just meant that Chris smacked into the back of him, pushing him full-body up against the glass. The door was locked. Fucking locked. He curled his hands around his eyes, and peered through the glass. The lights might be on, but there was no one home - empty booths, empty counter, the dark rectangle of a door into the kitchens behind that.

Chris reached past him to rattle the door. "They're closed? What the fuck is wrong with this place!"

"They're closed," Nick confirmed. "Shit. Let's get back in the car."

He took a last deep breath from the shelter of the doorway, and then plunged back out into the wild night, with Chris just ahead of him. The weather was truly foul. Standing, hunched over, while Chris fumbled the lock, and then got himself inside to open Nick's side, Nick had more time than he'd wanted to appreciate just how foul. Reason number one hundred and one why he had houses in the sunshine states …

With a thin steel barrier between them and the rain at least it was dry enough to breathe in the car, but Nick could feel icy water running in rivulets from his hair down his temples. Chris was shaking his head and fussing too.

"I can't believe they're fucking closed!" Chris fumed, and then turned in his seat, and fitted his hand over the sodden fabric of Nick's jeans. "Not quite how I had this planned out."

Chris's hand was cold when Nick squeezed it. "I figured. So what do we do now?" It was kind of nice to know that Chris was disappointed too.

"We go back to the motel, and order a god-damn pizza. They had some menus at the desk.."

"Sounds good to me."

****

The drive back was - tense. The rain didn't relent, and, after the car had slid halfway into the crossing at the first junction, Chris took his foot off the accelerator. Neither of them pushed the CD back into the player, and neither of them seemed to have anything to say. Nick tried to watch the oncoming road through the water on the windscreen and tightened his hand around the seatbelt until the nylon was cutting into his fingers. They didn't see a single vehicle, or any other sign of life.

The motel sign was like a beacon in the night, smeared neon flashing through the wipers. Nick wouldn't have thought he'd be relieved to get to a run down no-name motel, but he was. At least there were other people here, and most of the lights were working. When they drove past the office the door was open, a warm slice of light cutting across the porch, and Nick was just about to say something when the car's engine choked, and Chris cursed.

There was a lurch of acceleration as the engine caught again, and then, a few seconds later, as Chris turned the car into their space, a worryingly biological sound from the engine and then silence.

"Fuck!" Chris thumped the steering wheel, and Nick bit his lip. "He said he'd fixed the fucking transmission."

"Hey. At least it got us back here."

Chris shook his head.

"Dude, this never happens to Sam and Dean." Nick smiled. "But, hey: we're back at our room, there's nothing you can do in the middle of the night in the pouring rain, and, you know, it's not like we were going to go out for dinner, anyway, so… I'm sure we can think of something to do to pass the time."

Nick felt like such a dork, trying to make his voice low and sexy, sitting in soggy denim in the dark, but there was a hint of a smile tugging at Chris's lips.

"You think?"

"I think. Inside, though."

"You know I love you for your mind, right?" Chris wriggled in his seat, leant over and smacked a warm kiss on the side of Nick's forehead.

"Course you do," Nick smiled. "But you still have to feed me sometimes."

"Mmm. Pizza and sex. Tell you what - you head for the room, and I'll go get a menu."

Nick fumbled the key chain that Chris dropped in his lap, because he was taking advantage of Chris's precarious position to kiss him again.

"Pizza, pizza, pizza," Chris chanted when he eventually slumped back in his seat, and Nick chuckled.

"I'll be waiting," he hammed, and then threw himself out into the filthy night.

Lord, it was nasty - cold and wet, and just in the few yards from the car to the covered walkway Nick was chilled, and with half the lights in the lot out it took him forever to get the key in the lock, and by the time he was able to shut the pounding rain out he was starting to shiver.

He pulled off his soaked hoodie, and the shirts underneath, scrubbing at his hair with the mostly-dry one that had been next to his skin. His jeans were stiff with water, and his socks were damp, even through his new sneakers. He bundled up in two t-shirts, a button down, and a sweat shirt over jeans and new socks, and he looked around for a thermostat. The cold wasn't making it easy to try and seduce Chris.

Nick found the thermostat - an old fashioned cream plastic dial - and turned it right up. He fiddled with it, down and up, listening for a click or a light or some other sign that it was working. He gave up, and draped his wet jeans over the lukewarm radiator. He sat on the bed they hadn't messed up yet, and petted the slightly rough cover. He felt like quite a lot of time had passed, so he pulled back the drapes and leaned up close to the window and cupped his hands around his face and peered out into the darkness.

It was still raining.

He drew a smiley face in the mist his breathing had left on the glass, and let the drapes fall back. He picked up his t-shirts and separated them, spreading his hoodie out over the single chair. He dug though his bag, looking for his cell, and then gave up and tipped everything out on to the bed. His cell was wrapped up in a pair of Calvins and the battery was dead. He didn't seem to have packed the charger. Good thing everyone who might have an emergency that he'd need to know about had Chris's number. He tried not to think about people having emergencies, and pushed all his stuff back into his bag, haphazard and tangled together. He dumped the bag back on the floor, and forced himself to count to ten before he sprang to his feet and crossed the room in about three steps to throw the door open.

It was still raining: loud and cold and damp and dark.

The light outside the room door was still out, but the next one down, and the next, and the next, flung shadows and pools of light, and Nick squinted across the parking lot towards the office, but he still couldn't see Chris.

Nick counted to ten again, and made himself roll his shoulders back and down. He was getting kind of antsy, and if he thought about it, he could practically hear his therapist's voice in his head, telling him to breathe, and to concentrate on the moment, not the maybes.

And then, across the lot, something moved. Something *dashed*. And before Nick could work out who or what it was, it was gone again, eaten up by the night. Nick bit his lip before he called out Chris's name. They were supposed to be keeping a low profile, after all.

The sound of footsteps - running footsteps - on wood put Nick's heart in his mouth, and he moved back half a step, preparing to slam the door, and he still almost yelled when Chris appeared out of the shadows, and crowded against Nick.

"In, in, in!" Chris insisted, and that didn't make Nick feel any less freaked out than he already was.

"What?! Chris?"

Chris had shoved him into the room, and had his back to Nick, fiddling with the lock on the door and muttering under his breath. Only a few seconds could have passed, really, but it was long enough for everything to crowd into Nick's mind - mad dogs, axe-wielding psychos, mobs of fans …

"Jesus!" Chris exclaimed when the door was fixed the way he wanted it, and he turned to lean against it, staring at Nick with wide eyes. "Jesus."

"Chris?"

Nick reached out and Chris came into his arms in a rush.

"They're fucking gone, too."

"Who? What?" Nick was confused,

"The guys in the office? It's like the Marie Celeste or something - I went in the back room, and there's, like, a half eaten sandwich and spilt beer and - they're just gone!"

"Hey, hey, just. Shit. I don’t know. Maybe they're fixing something in someone's room?"

Chris shook his head.

"What - everyone in this whole town is in a motel room fixing something in silence? You don't think it's a bit fucking weird, Nick?"

"Well, yeah, but - "

"And there's something out there," Chris talked over him. "Something really big out there in the lot. I thought - shit."

Nick squeezed Chris. He didn't know what was going on, but Chris was honestly freaked, going by the slightly hysterical tone of his voice. And it was pretty fucking weird that the whole town was deserted.

"Something big?"

"Well - yeah. I didn't see what, 'cos it's fucking dark out there, but - yeah - big."

"Big, like, a truck?"

Chris was too close for his punch to sting, and Nick squeezed Chris to stop him trying again.

"Not a fucking truck, no. It was - moving. And don't say trucks move, Nick, 'cos that's not what I saw. I know what a truck looks like. And what it sounds like. Whatever the fuck that was, it didn't have an engine."

Nick shivered. "And - there was no one at the office?" he asked.

"I told you - it's like they were beamed up or something - tv on, lights on, but no one home."

"Freaky."

"Uh-huh!" Chris pulled away, and went to the window

"Do you see it?"

"I think it's gone."

Chris came back, and Nick tugged on his wrist until Chris bounced down on the bed next to him.

"You think we should try and call someone?"

"Who're we gonna call?" Chris shrugged.

"Ghostbusters? No, seriously - I don't know - the police? If those people have just vanished …"

"I can't call the police just 'cos the motel staff aren't on call,"

"Did you call the office?"

"Nick." Chris rolled his eyes. "I wandered around the back office, into their kitchen and yelled up the stairs - they're not there."

"Maybe they thought you were a psycho and they were hiding from you?"

"Dude, they run a motel - what's so scary about a guest showing up at the office?"

"You get psychos at motels," Nick retorted, and then rather wished he hadn't. "All I'm saying is, why don't we try and call them?"

"Okay!" Chris sounded kind of angry, but he leant over Nick to pick up the room's phone. There was a red 'office' key in the bottom right corner of the keypad, and Chris pushed it once, and then mashed it again and again.

"There's no dial tone."

"There's no …." Nick trailed off, and then took the handset from Chris. There was no dial tone. "What about your cell?"

Chris arched up and eased his cell out his jean's pocket. Nick took the opportunity to run a quick hand over Chris's butt, and then stuck his tongue out at Chris when Chris sat down hard and glared at Nick.

"Odd boy," Chris said, as he turned his phone over. The screen lit up, and then Chris frowned. "No signal."

Nick's stomach sank. "This is getting really weird." Chris stayed leaning up against him, and Nick could feel him nodding.

"Really weird."

"So, what do we do?" Nick asked, after a heavy minute had passed.

*****

The television only got seven channels, and two of them were evangelical fund raising, so in the end they settled for an ancient re-run of Wheel of Fortune and trying to pretend that the world outside the door didn't exist. It was hard when the wind occasionally blew flurries of rain against the windows.

They were leaning back against the headboard of the bed, Nick's arm around Chris's shoulder, so there was no way he didn't hear when Nick's stomach gurgled. Nick tried not to blush.

"Don’t suppose you picked up that pizza menu, did you?" he joked.

"'fraid not. Sorry."

"Oh well. I've got enough padding that I won't starve." It was force of habit to make it into a joke, but Chris's elbow nudging at his ribs let Nick know that Chris wasn't fooled: you can't kid a kidder.

"I bet I've got some stuff in the car," Chris said after another round of questions.

"Stuff?"

"Well, I know I've got some Red Bull, and I think there's a couple of bottles of water, maybe some soda, and I'm pretty sure I picked up some maple taffy back in Wisconsin. And, you know, tortilla chips. Not from Wisconsin."

"Really?"

"Really, I didn't buy them in Wisconsin."

Nick elbowed back, and for a second it was all really normal, and Chris was smiling, and then the worry about the situation settled back over them.

"You think we can …"

"The car's right there." Nick gestured at the window. "If you keep watch, I can …"

"Or I could. It's my car."

"I'm the one whose belly's trying to attract attention."

"So let me go find some food."

"Chris? You get that this isn’t your fault, right?"

Chris ignored him, getting to his feet, and twitching the drapes again.

"I don't see anything. Come over here and watch from the door, yeah?"

"Okay." Nick decided to let it go. They could argue about it after they got out of this place. "You've got your keys, right?"

Chris waved his keys, and Nick leant in for a quick kiss before sliding the bolt back on the door.

Nick grabbed hold of the handle, and then realised that he was also holding his breath. He slid his eyes away from Chris, called himself a dumb-ass inside his head, and then, when Chris's hand tightened on his shoulder, Nick opened the door and stepped back, so Chris could scurry past, hurrying towards the car, shoulders hunched against the rain.

Leaning his head out, Nick scanned around. Each of the lights in the lot - the ones that were working, anyway, illuminated an orange cone of falling rain: a constant left-hand motion. Nick didn't see anything else moving, except Chris, who had the passenger side door of the car open, and a can of something had appeared on the roof. Nick could just about make out the chain link fence in the darkness beyond the car, but still nothing moving. Except the trees.

At least he was pretty sure they were just trees. He thought he remembered seeing a stand of trees when the headlamps had swept around as they parked, and it had to be branches moving, in all this wind. What else would be moving way up there?

The sound of a car door slamming made Nick jump, his breath coming short and high in his chest, and he nearly called out, until he registered Chris walking round to the trunk of the Dodge. Chris. Shutting the car door. Dumb-ass.

Chris looked up, and Nick raised his hand in a thumbs up.

As he did, his eyes went back to the trees. He really couldn't see them, just the sort of black on black shapes in the rain that were probably trees. Unless they weren't. Every scary movie Nick had ever watched was swirling around in his head while the cold, wet air was seeping under his clothes. Tree-hiding killer hillbillies? Symbols that the place was infested by demon worshipers? Ghosts? Killer birds?

Something clattered off to the left, almost behind Nick, somewhere over towards the corner of the lot, back towards the office. Nick span, pressing his shoulder in to the door frame, and peered. Damnit, he still couldn't see anything. Too many lights were out, and the ones that were working just left a blur behind Nick's eyelids and killed his night vision. The noise came again, and still Nick couldn't see what was causing it, couldn't tell by sound, either, or if it was getting closer.

"Chris," he hissed, over his shoulder, then again, louder. "Chris!"

A car door slammed, and then footsteps, and then Chris pushed past him, arms full of stuff. Nick stumbled over his own feet trying to turn around and get the door shut again, a flimsy board barrier between them and whatever was out there in the night. Somehow it still made him feel a whole lot better when the bolt latched into place.

"What did you see?" Chris's voice was even, but when Nick turned around, Chris had dumped his prizes onto the bed, and was watching Nick with worried eyes from under the pointed tips of his wet hair.

"I'm not sure. I heard … well, I'm not sure of that, either, but …"

Chris held out his hand, and Nick went, wrapping himself around Chris despite the cold water that soaked into Nick's t-shirt.

"I was done anyway."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." They didn't say anything for a while, and then Nick's stomach gurgled again, and Chris smiled and said, "Dinner is served."

"So what's on the menu?" Nick asked, and let Chris go with a final squeeze. He wasn't going to say anything, but he was glad Chris hadn't gotten snatched by hillbillies or T-rexes or anything. Not that he thought that it was likely, but still, it was good that he hadn't.

"I was right about the taffy. And the Red Bull. But the tortilla chips are pretzels." Chris held up the bag as evidence.

"Pretzels are good."

*****

They were sitting spooned up, Nick leaning on the headboard, Chris sitting between his legs, leaning his head back on Nick's shoulder to talk. Between them they had devoured the food - Nick got most of the pretzels, while Chris finished off an open packet of chips that he'd scavenged, which Nick wasn't sure were still good to eat - but the Red Bull had probably been a bad idea. They were both kind of wired, and it was really hard to ignore the weather when it kept knocking at the windows and making the tv reception fuzz up, and Chris couldn't keep from talking with all that caffeine in his system.

"… there's a rational reason for all this shit?'Cos, man, I so can't think of one. I mean the weather took out the phone signal, maybe, but where'd a whole town full of folks go, huh? Nothing good makes a whole town full of people just vanish, and you didn't see that office. That was fucking creepy, I tell you. What d'you think might get people to just up and go like that?"

Chris's leg was making the bed rock, and he didn't pause for Nick to answer that question any more than he had for any of the others he'd asked.

"I mean, the whatever it was I saw out there was huge, man, like, really huge, but I can't see three people just going all 'oh - hey - monster thing! Let's go out and say hi!' I mean, that's just crazy, right? People wouldn't do that. Would they? I mean, unless there was, like, someone in danger, maybe, or - ohh - like it was a trap. Which means that these things must be smart as well as big, to be setting traps for people, and if they've eaten the whole town, they've gotta have been doing this for a while, right?"

Nick tightened his arms around Chris's chest.

"Hang on, though, if this has been going on for a while, wouldn't the police have been called or something?"

"Hmmm." Chris thought about that. "You have a point. Or at least people should be smart enough after the first ten or twenty people vanish not to go out there cos they can hear a puppy whining, or whatever the trap is. Although people can be pretty stupid. Or what if they're in on it? Like that god-thing-scarecrow, in Supernatural, that was killing people at the orchard, and the whole place was covering it up? Fixing it so their cars would break down and stuff. Shit, Nick, what if the people round here are all devil-monster worshiping freaks!"

Chris's voice was going up in both volume and pitch, and the adrenaline in Nick's system was starting to make itself felt, because Nick actually gave the idea some consideration.

"But if it's killing the people who live here too..?" He started, and then cut himself off. "No - you're right - they were going to sacrifice their granddaughter or whoever she was, to that scarecrow thing, weren't they? Maybe it's only some of them, and they're sending that thing after everyone else. The people they don't like or something?"

As soon as Nick said that he could feel Chris's mind working.

"Okay, that would be kind of coo…"

There was an awful ripping, crashing sound, and Nick instinctively curled himself around Chris, rolling them over to face away from the window.

The sound died away almost as quickly, until all Nick could hear was Chris swearing under his breath and the sort of moaning and howling noises they had been hoping was the wind for some time already. The tv was just snow and static now.

"Jesus," Nick breathed. "What the fuck was that?"

"I don't know. Let me up."

Chris scrambled clear, and went straight for the door, fingers twitching for the lock, and then he snatched back his hand and paced across the room to the bathroom. Nick pushed himself back to sitting, and wrapped his arms around his knees, staring at the weave of the denim.

"Chris?"

"Hold on a minute." Chris was back at the door, and this time he eased it open a fraction, leaning close to peer out. A blast of cold air hit Nick. The wind was strong enough to make the drapes flap. It seemed like forever until Chris carefully closed the door.

"I can't see anything - the lot lights are all out."

Nick didn't like the sound of that. Caffeine had put an unpleasant edge on the adrenaline in his system. He had to check to make sure he wasn't rocking or anything really dumb like that. This was so totally not what he'd been hoping for when he'd gotten on the plane.

The bed dipped as Chris came back, nudging Nick over and curling one arm over Nick's stomach.

"Maybe it was just a power line coming down?" Chris suggested.

"But the power's still on in here. Maybe it was one of the lot lights? You think it's windy enough for that?" It was pretty bad out there, but Nick had lived in hurricane country most of his life, and this wasn't a hurricane.

"Could be."

There was a stretch of silence where Nick could hear Chris not saying 'maybe it was knocked over by the giant people eating monster thing I saw.'

"You know, they never have to deal with anything really big on Supernatural. Mean, yeah, but it's never big."

Chris huffed. "They don't have the budget for big. Anyway, what's that big? Dinosaurs? I think we're safe from dinosaurs."

The part of Nick's brain he was trying to ignore helpfully pointed out that the emphasis on that sentence was all wrong and that Chris didn't, in fact, sound all that sure.

"And, um, Godzilla?" Nick suggested. "Seeing as that we're not near Japan, or the sea."

"Yep - good point. No Godzilla. Though Storm's got to be a suspect. Do the X-men ever get this far west?"

The wind outside did something that sounded for all the world like claws skittering over glass, and Chris shifted even closer - which was impressive because they were already curled in pretty tight.

"I don't know - why you asking me, fan boy?"

Nick tried to keep his voice teasing, like they were kicking back in Chris's den or something. He could tell his vocal chords were tense though, and he knew Chris must be able to too, and if he wasn't pretty sure Chris was at least as freaked out as he was, Nick might have worried more about that. It occurred to him, as the scratching sound came again, and they both of them tightened their grip on each other, that maybe that's what love kind of was - not being afraid of them seeing you be scared.

"Must be tree branches," Chris said, even though they both knew that there was five foot of covered walkway outside the window, and no trees next to it.

"Yeah. Branches. In the wind," Nick agreed. "Next time, I pick the hotel."

Chris nodded. Nick could feel it, the side of his head pushing up and down over Nick's chest. "Yeah." Chris's finger drifted along Nick's jaw line, dragging a little on the stubble that was starting to come through.

"This isn't working out like I planned."

"You mean you didn't order up a wind storm and an alien abduction, just for me?"

Chris's reaction was half squeeze, half poke in the ribs, and Nick knew that he'd gotten the tone just right. Chris got awfully sarcastic if there was any girlie romance stuff.

"Aliens," he said after a while. "I hadn't thought of that. Although why'd they take the whole town and not us?"

Nick tried to think about it. Without thinking about that movie he'd watched with the autopsies. "I dunno. Maybe we were just lucky? Right place at the wrong time?"

"I don't know. That doesn't seem that likely."

"And an alien abduction does?" Nick sputtered.

"You got anything better?"

"Well..." Nick thought about the deserted town and the shapes moving in the parking lot. "No."

"This is fucking freaky, man."

And then, as if to prove a point, the walkway outside their door creaked.

They both froze, listening.

It creaked again, and again, and a dark shape moved between the window and the walkway light, and Nick realized he'd pretty much stopped breathing, and forced himself to gulp down a lungful of air, and he was just about to turn his head to say something to Chris when the shape melted away, and the creaking stopped. That was almost scarier, and the way Chris's fingertips were digging in to Nick's leg said he felt the same way.

Nick didn't realize that it hurt until afterwards, but when something that sounded like metal tearing began, Chris's grip tightened enough that he left bruises. Metal being crushed, and glass breaking, and the rain was a deadening repetitive sound, but it wasn't covering this up - it sounded like something out of Jurassic Park was happening right the other side of the motel room door.

"Come on!" Chris hissed, scrambling over Nick's leg and off the bed, on the side away from the door. He was tugging at Nick's sleeve with one hand, and the bed clothes with the over. "Bring the blankets"

Nick was too freaked out to argue. He grabbed a handful of blankets and comforter, and followed Chris into the bathroom. The flat fluorescent light was really bright, bouncing off the tile, and when Chris pulled the door shut and slid the bolt across, it felt very small. Nick backed up so he was standing over the toilet seat.

"Um, Chris?" The acoustics were weird too. And he could still hear the metallic noise, faintly.

"Whatever that was out there? I want more than one door between me and it." Chris whispered, with a defiant tilt of the head. Like Nick was going to argue.

"Okay."

Nick automatically dropped his voice to match Chris's whisper. Maybe the thing had, like, really good hearing. Of course, if it was some kind of mech-thing, like in a Manga film, it would have heat vision and they'd be screwed either way, but even with his heart thudding so hard Nick could feel his pulse in his clenched hands, Nick knew that Japanese cartoons weren't the real world. Hiding in a motel bathroom while something tore metal apart outside wasn't that much like Nick's usual reality, either, but …

"Do we … pass me that towel." Chris held out his hand, and Nick looked around, before realizing that Chris was gesturing to the green towel Nick had hung up to dry. He passed it across. Chris leant over and began to wipe down the inside of the tub.

"You want to sleep in the tub?" Nick whispered, when he realized why Chris would be doing that. Chris looked up, over his shoulder. His bandana had come loose, and his hair was a mess of tangles and curls falling into his face.

"Where else do you think we can sleep?" He hissed back.

Nick wasn't sure that the tub was big enough for him, let alone for both of them sleep in it, but Chris had a point. There wasn't a whole lot of floor space in here either.

"I guess."

"You want to fold up one of the comforters to sit on?" Chris suggested, and Nick made himself concentrate on separating one from the knot of bedclothes, and on shaking it out and folding it into quarters, lengthwise, without accidentally smacking Chris in the face. There really wasn't a whole lot of space in here.

The metal noise had stopped, but something about the plumbing made the wind howl and sing. They got themselves wedged in, and eventually they stopped jumping at every noise. After a while, Nick suggested that maybe Chris should turn off the light, so they could try and get some sleep.

It was very, very dark in the bathroom. Chris cautiously crawled back on top of Nick, wriggling and fussing until he was sitting across Nick's lap, face to face, with a blanket pulled up over his shoulders. He leant forward with his hands on the wall above Nick's head.

"If I'm going to get eaten by alien dinosaurs, I'm kind of glad I got to get you off one more time," Chris confessed.

Nick kissed him, to hide his own smile. Just a dry kiss, no tongue, and he already felt warmer, safer.

"Me too." Nick answered, after they stopped kissing. "And, you know, who else would I want to share this with? I mean, I don't wanna get killed or cut up and examined and shit, but, you know, I'm glad it was you."

Chris let his weight settle, until he was nuzzling at Nick's neck, breathing hot air on the sensitive skin under Nick's ear, and spoke quietly enough that Nick almost didn't hear him over the pipes. "I'm glad it's been you."

*****

They must have fallen asleep, because the next thing Nick remembered was blinking, and thinking that something was wrong with the picture, and then realizing that it was wrong because it was quiet. Quiet so he could hear Chris breathing, head pillowed on Nick's shoulder. Nick shifted, and realized that his butt was completely numb. He moved again, and this time Chris mumbled and stirred.

"Chris." Nick shook Chris's shoulder gently. "Chris. Wake up."

"Huh? Wha'?" Chris sat up. It was still dark in the bathroom, but less pitch-black than it had been, and Nick could just make out the shape of Chris scrubbing at his face.

"It's really quiet." Nick was still whispering.

"Yes? Oh - yeah. It is."

Chris was still for a moment; probably listening, and then he clambered to his feet. Nick followed, wooly-headed from not enough sleep and stiff as well as numb. A thin sliver of light showed around the edges of the door. Nick rested his hand on Chris's shoulder, and held his breath as Chris eased the door oh-so-slowly open, just enough to peek into the main room.

Nick breathed out when Chris stepped back and opened the door. The strip lights were really bright, but the window behind the drapes showed daylight. They'd kind of trashed the room, pulling the sheets off with the blankets, and knocking over a lamp and Chris's bag as they went. It felt really weird to see that. It already seemed crazy that they'd both been so freaked out that sleeping in the bathroom made sense.

When Chris started moving, Nick had to shake off his feeling of weird to move, stepping over the trailing sheets to follow Chris to the door. Nick almost tripped over when he heard voices outside. Okay, so voices that sounded - well - normal - two guys, and a woman: something about a thermos. Definite lack of screaming or panicking or worshiping demons.

Chris stuck his head out of the door - bed head and all - and said 'Hi'. Nick followed, peering over Chris's shoulder.

There were two people at the end of the walkway, two doors past their room. A woman in blue jeans, up a ladder, with a teenage boy holding the bottom of it. He was blond, with his hair pulled back in a ponytail, and, with his head tipped back like it was, Nick couldn't see his face properly. He couldn't see the top half of the woman in the jeans at all, but she was definitely a she, from her voice. She was hammering and keeping up a steady stream of words Nick couldn't make out.

"Hey," the boy with the ponytail called back, raising one hand in a casual greeting. "Quite the storm we had last night."

"You're telling me," Chris replied and then, "Holy shit!"

"What!" Nick demanded, suddenly on alert again.

"Holy fucking shit! My car!"

Chris took a couple of steps out onto the walkway, and Nick pushed close behind, craning to see. Holy shit was right.

Both the windows that Nick could see were smashed in, the side door was hanging half off its hinge, and long gashes marked the body. "Holy shit!" Nick echoed.

There was a thump as a pair of booted feet landed on the asphalt next to the walkway. The woman in the blue jeans turned out to be in maybe her forties, with a tanned weathered face and short dark hair.

"You boys aren't local, are you?" she drawled, and Nick shook his head. "Let me guess - you had food in your car? Candy bars in the glove compartment or something? Grocery bags on the back seat? 'Cos that there, that's a bear did that."

"A bear?"

"Uh huh - we get them round these parts. They don't normally come right into town, and all, but with the storm? I guess they get crazy, kind of like folks do."

Nick just stared at her. A bear? A bear totaled their car? Looking for candy? Nick thought of Chris out in the dark gathering up an armful of food, and stepped a little closer.

"Well - shit," Chris concluded, and the lady smiled.

"Yeah, that's about the shape of it," she agreed.

"So, um, guess there's not a whole lot of point me asking if there's a garage in town that could look at my transmission, huh?"

She shook her head, and Chris continued. "So, you know anyone who could drive us to the airport?"

*****

It turned out that her husband - Bill Myer of Myer's Motel - needed to head over to Tillamook to get supplies to help with the fix-up operation, and that his friend, Tod, ran the town's auto-shop. It didn't take too much negotiation to get it set that Tod would store the Dodge until Chris could arrange someone to collect it, and then to get Chris and Nick, two ham and dill pickle sandwiches and a thermos of coffee crammed into the passenger seat of Bill's pick up.

Nick let Chris carry the conversation and devoured both the sandwiches, listening to the others talk back and forth. It never got old, the way Chris could talk to anyone when he wanted to, get them to tell him stories and shit, whether they were A-list movie stars, or a nearly-ready-to-retire motel owner.

Bill might be ready to retire, but he still served with the local volunteer fire fighters, and he was telling Chris about the mudslide they'd been called out to the night before - two artist's workshops and a house, just swamped, like that, thanks to all the rain, and Bill and his friends had gone out there, in the same rain, and saved people's lives, and here he was, not twelve hours later, driving a pair of incognito pop stars to the airport. He didn't even look tired. Sometimes people just made Nick's head hurt, with all the stuff that they did. He was kind of glad, though, that Chris had been just as chicken-shit as Nick, which meant that Chris wasn't going to bring up the subject. Bill and Janie probably thought they were a real pair of dumb city-slickers already without knowing about how they'd spent the night.

The first words out of Chris's mouth, once Bill had driven away leaving them and their bags on the kerb at the airport, were "Oh man - what a guy!"

"I knew you were going to say that."

"Well, duh! No wonder the place was deserted last night. People volunteer to do that? I mean, hurray for them, but - are they crazy?"

Nick hefted his bag, and pulled at Chris's elbow.

"Probably. C'mon. Let's go find us some tickets for a plane out of here. And some more breakfast."

"I love a man with a plan." Chris smiled in the sharp morning light, and then turned his back on Oregon. "Let's go."

They hurried inside, and the blast of warm air when the doors opened was welcome. It had been okay crammed together in the pick up, but out on the kerb the wind was vicious. The single sales point was open, staffed by an older woman in an unfortunately bright blue uniform.

"Good morning. Welcome to Custom Charter - how can I help you?"

Chris opened his mouth to reply, and Nick dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder, tugging him back. "I said, next time I choose the hotel."

Nick stepped up to the desk, and pulled out his wallet.

"Good morning ma'am. I need to get to Las Vegas, flying as soon as you can manage."


End file.
